Argo CD

Argo CD is a GitOps controller for Kubernetes. Desired state lives in Git; the controller reconciles clusters toward that state; drift, sync health, and rollbacks become visible operations.

					apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Application
metadata:
  name: web
spec:
  source:
    repoURL: https://github.com/org/k8s-manifests
    path: apps/web
  destination:
    server: https://kubernetes.default.svc
    namespace: production
  syncPolicy:
    automated:
      prune: true
				

CI builds and pushes images; Argo CD deploys manifests that reference image digests or tags. Sync waves order dependencies; health checks gate promotion.

On interviews: pull-based GitOps versus push deploy, drift detection, separating build CI from deploy reconciliation, secret management in clusters.

Common pitfalls: bad manifests in Git still break production; manual `kubectl` drift fights GitOps; conflating image build pipeline with deployment controller.

The trade-off is declarative cluster state versus Kubernetes operational learning curve.

Checklist:

• Keep desired state in Git.
• Watch sync and application health.
• Separate image build from manifest reconciliation.
• Manage secrets outside plain Git when required.